W. B. Yeats; folklore interviews

"Many of the tales in this book were told me by one Paddy Flynn, a little bright-eyed old man, who lived in a leaky and one-roomed cabin in the village of Ballisodare, which is, he was wont to say, 'the most gentle'- whereby he meant faery - place in the whole county of Sligo.  ---The first time I saw him he was cooking mushrooms for himself: the next time he was asleep under a hedge, smiling in his sleep.  He was indeed always cheerful, though I could see in his eyes (swift as the eyes of a rabbit, when they peered out of their wrinkled holes) a melancholy which was well-nigh a portion of their joy; the visionary melancholy of purely instinctive natures and of all animals."

The Celtic Twilight
Faerie and folklore
~W.B.Yeats